Higgs boson, the most ‘elegant’ way to describe our reality… but don’t call it the ‘God particle’

Higgs boson, the most 'elegant' way to describe our reality, but don't call it 'God particle'

A team of physicists, including scientists from Canada, claimed Tuesday they had narrowed the search for the elusive sub-atomic Higgs boson particle that would confirm the way science describes the Universe.

Experiments at Europe’s giant atom smasher have “reduced the window where scientists think they will find the Higgs boson,” said Bruno Mansoulie, a researcher at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN).

The Higgs boson is the missing link in the so-called Standard Model of physics, which explains how the basic building blocks of observed matter fit together.

Its existence — if confirmed — would explain in a single stroke the mystery of what gives this invisible constellation of particles mass.

The Higgs boson is being hunted so determinedly because it would be the manifestation of an invisible field – the Higgs field – thought to permeate the entire universe.

The field was posited in the 1960s by British scientist Peter Higgs as the way that matter obtained mass after the universe was created in the Big Bang.

As such, according to the theory, it was the agent that made the stars, planets – and life – possible by giving mass to most elementary particles, the building blocks of the universe; hence the nickname “God particle.”

Such a discovery would rank in importance with major breakthroughs of the last century, going back to Einstein’s first formulation of quantum physics. For now, however, the boson only exists in theory.

If it turns out to be a mirage, it would force scientists back to the drawing board to rewrite the textbook of particle physics.

But Pauline Gagnon, a Canadian member of CERN’s ATLAS team, warned against drawing any religious parallels: “I hate that ‘God particle’ term,” she said.

“The Higgs is not endowed with any religious meaning. It is ridiculous to call it that,” Gagnon told a news conference.

Canada has contributed close to $100 million to the international project with more than 200 researchers and graduate students involved in designing and operating the particle-smashing and detecting machines.

Robert Orr, a University of Toronto physicist, who was involved with the latest development regarding the Higgs boson particle claimed it was “the most elegant way humans can build a theory for describing reality.”

He said that if the discovery of one of physics’ great mysteries can be confirmed, the possibilities of what else can be found are amazing.

“Once the Higgs matter is settled, we’ll be excited by the next 10 or 15 years of new discoveries,” Orr told a news conference in Toronto. “And they may be really dramatic new discoveries. Some people think there might be other dimensions of space and time we’ll discover.”

Orr said the potential for discovery “beyond the standard model (of physics)” serves as an exciting prospect because the discoveries “may be even more intimately connected with the structure of the universe.”

CERN reported on Tuesday the midpoint results from two separate experiments that independently arrived at the same conclusion.

The Web-cast presentation was made before several hundred scientists in an atmosphere charged with excitement and punctuated with applause.

Taken together, the results provide “tantalising hints” that the sought-after particle is hiding inside a narrow range of mass, CERN said in a statement.

“If it exists, it is most likely to have a mass constrained to the range of 116 to 130 gigaelectronvolts (GeV),” CERN said, using the standard measure for the mass of sub-atomic particles. One GeV is roughly equivalent to the mass of a proton.
Both experiments showed telltale activity at a sweet spot around 125 GeV.

“It’s too early to draw definitive conclusions, we need more data,” said Fabiola Gianotti, head of the ATLAS group.

“But we have established a solid foundation for passionately exciting months ahead,” she said, adding that a definitive answer was expected within 12 months.

The new results have a higher degree of certaintly — 99 percent — but still fall well below the threshold of discovery.

“For scientists, certainty requires a threshold of a no greater than five in ten million chance of error,” Daniel Fournier, an Atlas researcher, told AFP.

After a shaky start, the world’s biggest atom smasher has ramped up power to record levels, allowing scientists to sift through the debris of near speed-of-light collisions more quickly than expected.

“We are at the beginning, but the progress has been huge. Very few people thought we would be where we are,” said Guido Tonelli, leader of the second major experiment, known as CMS.

Even if CERN does flush out the Higgs boson sometime next year, it will complete the picture for only that small slice of matter that is known.

“Don’t forget that the Standard Model only explains four percent of the Universe,” Rolf Heuer, Director General of CERN, said at a press conference. “We have a long way to go.”

Scientists speculate that the other 96 percent of the Universe consists of dark matter (26 percent) and dark energy (70 percent), neither of which has been directly observed.

So what has God got to do with it?

“We don’t call it the ‘God particle’, it’s just the media that do that,” a senior U.S. scientist politely told an interviewer on a major European radio station on Tuesday.

“Well, I am the from the media and I’m going to continue calling it that,” said the journalist – and continued to do so.

The exchange, as physicists at the CERN research centre near Geneva were preparing to announce the latest news from their long and frustrating search for the Higgs boson, illustrated sharply how science and the popular media are not always a good mix.

“I hate that ‘God particle’ term,” said Pauline Gagnon, a Canadian member of CERN’s ATLAS team of so-called “Higgs hunters” – an epithet they do not reject.

“The Higgs is not endowed with any religious meaning. It is ridiculous to call it that,” she told Reuters at a news conference after her colleagues revealed growing evidence, albeit not yet proof, of the particle’s existence.

Oliver Buchmueller, from the rival research team CMS, was a little less trenchant.

“Calling it the ‘God particle’ is completely inappropriate,” said the German physicist, who divides his time between CERN and teaching at London’s Imperial College.

“It’s not doing justice to the Higgs and what we think its role in the universe is. It has nothing to do with God.”

The Higgs boson is being hunted so determinedly because it would be the manifestation of an invisible field – the Higgs field – thought to permeate the entire universe.

The field was posited in the 1960s by British scientist Peter Higgs as the way that matter obtained mass after the universe was created in the Big Bang.

As such, according to the theory, it was the agent that made the stars, planets – and life – possible by giving mass to most elementary particles, the building blocks of the universe; hence the nickname “God particle.”

“Without it, or something like it, particles would just have remained whizzing around the universe at the speed of light,” said Pippa Wells, another Atlas researcher.

But Wells also has no time for theological terminology in describing it.

“Hearing it called the ‘God particle’ makes me angry. It confuses people about what we are trying to do here at CERN.”

According to people who have investigated the subject, the term originated with a 1993 history of particle physics by U.S. Nobel prize winner Leon M Lederman.

The book was titled: “The God Particle: If the Universe is the Answer, What is the Question?”

Physicists say Lederman, who over the years has been the target of much opprobrium from his scientific colleagues, tells friends he wanted to call the book “The Goddamned Particle” to reflect frustration at the failure to find it.

But, according to that account, his publisher rejected the epithet – possibly because of its potential to upset a strongly religious U.S. public – and convinced Lederman to accept the alternative he proposed.

“Lederman has a lot to answer for,” said Higgs himself, now 82, on a visit to Geneva some six years ago.

But James Gillies, spokesman for CERN and himself a physicist, is slightly more equivocal.

“Of course it has nothing to do with God whatsoever,” he says. “But I can understand why people go that way because the Higgs is so important to our understanding of nature.”